


His Hitter

by CatLovePower



Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 02:05:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9299312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatLovePower/pseuds/CatLovePower
Summary: Hardison had some fun with some of Eliot and Nate’s aliases, leading to surprises when one of them ended up in the hospital.





	

A phone was ringing in the quiet space of the closed bar, below Nate’s apartment. The thief was resting his head on his arms, trying to block the noise which was threatening to pierce a hole in his skull. Whiskey had seemed necessary earlier, but now he was starting to regret every glass of it.

He patted his jacket until he located the annoying phone. He tried to make out the caller ID, but the screen was blurry and way too bright. He punched a button, hopefully not hanging up on whoever was calling, and muttered something that looked like a veiled threat.

“ _N-Nate_?” the phone said.

It felt as if all the blood drained from his face in an instant. It was Eliot, and it sounded bad, real bad.

“I'm listening,” Nate said, gripping the phone.

“ _My place_ ,” Eliot all but whispered. There was something wet in his voice, like a cough that rattled in his chess. Then the phone clattered to the ground on the other side of the line, and Nate was fumbling to get his car keys.

Some time ago, he had checked where Eliot lived, but he also knew it wasn't his only place in town either. The hitter must have known that Nate was snooping around, and assumed he would find the place easily. Or maybe he wasn't thinking clearly and he decided to trust Nate.

*

The lights were out, up in Eliot's flat, but he didn't even have to enter the building. Eliot was lying in the street, his back to the wall, looking very much like a hobo. But the dirt on his face turned out to be blood, and Nate gasped when he came closer.

He kneeled down and fumbled to get his phone out, to shine some light on Eliot. His eyes were closed, and Nate couldn't tell if he was still breathing. When he leaned to feel for a pulse, a hand snaked up and caught his wrist, squeezing just a little too tight.

“It's me. What happened?” But he got no answer, and Eliot didn't open his eyes.

The grip on his arm relented, and Nate tried to see where the blood was coming from. His own head was pounding, and he felt weirdly exposed, as if they were being watched.

“Eliot, are they still there?” he hushed. This time he got a tiny headshake and a grunt. “Good, that's good,” he babbled.

He ran a hand over Eliot's shirt and made a face when it came back bloody.

“Can you stand?”

No nod this time, but he felt Eliot tense beneath him, bracing himself to get up. He failed. There was blood everywhere, even on the wall behind him.

“A hit,” Nate said, to no one in particular. A hit against Eliot, him, them.

Feeling sober for the first time in days, he called 911, then the team. And all the while he kept berating Eliot for calling him first, of all persons. He waited for the ambulance, never releasing pressure on the nasty gunshot wound to the upper abdomen. Eliot had stopped responding a while back, apparently trusting Nate to fix everything.

*

“Hardison, what ID do I use?” Nate growled on the phone in the hall of a very busy ER. He was angry at himself for not remembering, but the last month or so was lost in a haze of half remembered nights, and he just knew they – meaning Hardison – had made some changes after San Lorenzo.

“ _What did Eliot have on him_?” Hardison asked. He sounded tired and afraid.

Nate looked down at the half completed form on his lap. He had scrubbed his hands but there were still tiny flecks of dried blood under his fingernails.

“Eliot Kowalski. Is that Polish? Nevermind.”

“ _You should have a Nathan Kowalski somewhere_ ,” Hardison sighed.

Nate hung out with a muttered thank you. He looked for the nearest nurse to terrorize into letting him into the ICU or wherever they had taken his hitter.

“He's not out of surgery yet,” a nurse behind a desk told him, after looking at his computer screen for a while. "We'll call you.”

Nate made a face but didn't say anything else. At least they were treating him like family and not asking for any next of kin they could notify. For now, he was Kowalski's next of kin.

*

When they finally called his alias in the waiting room, Nate sprung to his feet and demanded to see his... His... He realized then that he didn't even know what Hardison had cooked up for them.

The orderly looked at him with a tight smile and said, “There is no reason to be ashamed, you know.”

Nate stayed silent because he didn't know what she meant by that, and he didn't care if he could get him past the locked revolving doors to the ICU. If it really was a hit on them, he needed to stand guard and not leave Eliot’s side.

The rest of their little group was on route, but for now there was only him, and that thought made him dizzy, even more that the alcohol still coursing in his bloodstream. He needed a drink. He didn't deserve the amount of trust Eliot had put in him with that single phone call.

“Your partner is here,” the orderly said, indicating a large room with a lot of unconscious patients on narrow beds. “Recovery room,” she explained. “He is still under heavy sedatives.”

Eliot wasn't going to like that, Nate thought, running a hand in his very disheveled hair. From where they stood, he could see the bed, and Eliot lying on it, too pale and still.

“You can wait in the corridor, before he can be moved to a room upstairs.”

When Nate made no move to sit, she took his hand and said with a strange intensity, “He's going to be okay. You have a tough husband.”

Nate smiled and stared, wide-eyes, because that certainly was a first.

*

Eliot woke up to a strange scene, in a cramped hospital room. The remnants of the anesthesia and the pull of the stitches were a dead giveaway, even before he opened his eyes.

Nate was sitting in a corner, nursing a coffee cup that was mostly alcohol by now. It had a very distinctive smell. Sophie was hovering near the window. Hardison and Parker were quietly chatting outside the room.

They kept the noise to a minimum, but Eliot was glad to hear them all next to him. It was comforting to know they didn't fall victim to his lack of foresight. He should have expected Moreau to retaliate, despite his arrest. He shouldn't have been taken by surprise like that.

Parker was saying something nonsensical, about Nate and him having to live together now. He did spend a lot of time at Nate’s during jobs. When she came back in the room, she was the first to spot that the sedatives were wearing off.

“He's awake!”

Her voice was a little too shrill, and Eliot winced. He tried to sit straight but failed. His hair felt oily and his skin too tight, and he just wanted to disappear, now that he knew everyone was safe.

Weirdly enough, Hardison whispered, “Don't get too close,” as if Eliot might attack.

He licked his lips and said, “You didn't have to stay.”

“Oh yes we did,” Nate said with a sigh. He looked old. And tired. And drunk. “You tried to escape earlier.”

“You stole a scalpel,” Hardison explained.

“I did?” Eliot asked in a small voice. He didn't remember any of that. Everything after last night was still fuzzy. But it did sound like something he would do.

“And then security had to tackle you. I saw the footage.”

“It was awesome!” Parker said.

“Barbarians.” Sophie shook her head. “They tore your stitches.”

“Moreau?” Eliot asked.

“Not exactly,” Hardison said. “Everything points to Vector.”

Seeing Eliot's lack of recognition, Hardison explained, “Mark Vector, ex-hockey player, shady investment manager.”

“Wasn’t he arrested? Are we safe now?” Eliot rasped. It was getting hard to think straight, but he had to be sure.

“Yeah. But let me tell you he doesn’t have any Internet privileges in prison anymore!” Hardison said, with that smile that accompanied his geeky shenanigans.

“Why me?”

Not that it was a problem or anything. But he didn't think Vector knew about him or his ties to Nate. His brow furrowed as he tried to remember if the mark knew he was part of the team back then. They had been playing cops, he recalled.

“Oh, he thought you and Nate were married.”

“Parker! You weren't supposed to tell him,” Hardison said.

Eliot waited for the explanation, too tired to try and guess by himself.

“Hardison's concept of fun is a little special,” Sophie provided. “He married your aliases.”

If everything didn't hurt so much right now, Eliot would have shrugged.

“At least they let me stay with you,” Nate said. “You went on a rampage when I left to get coffee.”

“That's it?” Hardison asked when Eliot failed to comment. He sounded offended. “You freak out every time I hug you, but being married to Nate is okay?”

“I'm a little married to him already.”

“What?”

“I'm his hitter.” As if that made perfect sense. In a way it did.

“So when we took down Moreau, Nate was really going after your ex?” Parker chuckled.

By then, Eliot wasn't really listening anymore. The deep pull in his abdomen had morphed into a sharp stabbing pain that pulsed with his heartbeat. He could shrug off a lot of things, but there was no escaping that.

Parker moved near the bed, snatched something in the bedding, and next thing he knew, something cold snaked into his IV and into his arm. Eliot knew he should have argued about that, but he was grateful she took the matter out of his hands.

“So, when can I leave?” His voice was airy, his eyes no longer focusing properly.

The room erupted with noise and mock indignation – there was no way he was standing right now, let alone leaving the hospital. He closed his eyes and let the voices wash over him.

“You just had surgery!” – Hardison, who sounded as freaked as if the bullet had pierced his own lung.

“Take it easy for once.” – Sophie, reasonable as always.

“Let us steal divorce papers then.” – Nate, pragmatic.

“Do we really need to? It’s kind of cute.” Parker, of course.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate title was "The Divorce Job".


End file.
